of interest

October 07, 2011

To a cook, food is a kaleidoscope of things: art, science, history, identity, religion. Sometimes food is just fuel; sometimes life itself. Every once in a while we encounter a food that is pure magic.

Take burrata, for instance: an impossibly thin skin of mozzarella encapsulating a filling of cream and curds. Surely (I thought), it's the work of an otherworldly being; the conjuring of a generous sorcerer, or a sleight of hand by a milk magician with an enormous heart.

I said as much (or something like it) to a complete stranger upon tasting a particularly ethereal specimen, to which he replied with a humble "thank you". It took me a moment to understand that he was telling me that he had made the burrata himself, perhaps because his earthliness threw me off. But after listening to him describe the process with reverence and passion, while the whole time his deft hands traced the motions, I knew that I was at least half right.

If a mere mortal can make burrata, can we cooks do anything to make it better? To subject it to temperature or tools would only destroy its texture— and burrata is all about texture, the flavor is only as good as the milk from which it's made. No, the best we can do is to pair it foods that will act like magician's assistants, whose role is to enhance the performance of the magician.

My peaches were a disappointment this year. The ones that didn't rot on the tree weren't even worth picking. After the magic of last years harvest, I want to blame it on the incessant rain but that wouldn't explain why the local peaches weren't so affected. In fact, the ones I picked up at the farmer's market displayed remarkable balance and aroma for such a wet year. They made a wonderful fresh peach and mascarpone tart, flecked with spicy, citrusy Agastache "Desert Sunrise" flowers, but paired with burrata, as they are here, the dish was enchanting.

September 19, 2011

Milkweed is a useful plant, entirely edible in its early stages. The young shoots are a delight when they emerge in the spring. Later, the tender young leaves are worth seeking out, but it's the reproductive parts that start out as buds, then open into sweet-scented flowers, and develop into tender-crisp pods that interest me most.By mid-summer the plant toughens as it directs its energy into producing seeds. Though the mature pods are too cellulosic to consume, they're beautiful to look at. Pulling one apart, I am reminded of the recurring motifs found in nature: the seeds, perfectly shingled like feathers and fish scales, the 'cobs' composed of lustrous filaments— finer than silk— that unfurl into ghostly flowers to carry the seeds into perpetuity. Genius!

Although I had managed to harvest and pickle some flower buds while they were in season, I thought I had missed the window for the young pods until I found a stand of stunted plants growing in deep shade. The pods must be blanched to draw out their milky sap. I served them as crudites with a kefir-based dip and made some new milkweed (and kefir) converts. I saved a few to garnish a cold soup that I'm excited to tell you about.

All summer long my blender had been busy making raw, green gazpacho-style soups. Packed with good flavor and nutrients, they were a savory on-the-go alternative to smoothies, yet with some prudent garnishes they easily transitioned to more formal meals. Mostly, I made them with whatever was fresh and on hand, with variations of the basic components. Here's my framework recipe with percentages based on weight:

A few weeks ago, I made what would likely be the last cold soup of the year. I packed the blender with cucumber, nasturtium leaves, Crenshaw melon, almonds, garlic, scallions, and olive oil. I didn't have any open white wine or vegetable broth, but I did have a lot of fresh kefir whey left over from making kefir cheese. Since it was more than moderately acidic, I used it to replace both the liquid and the acid in the soup. In doing so, I realized that I was adding an ingredient that was alive with lactic acid and yeast, and that if given the right conditions (time and temperature), they would be capable of fermenting the soup. After consuming part of the soup, I put the rest on my front porch on an 85℉ day. Four hours later, the soup was notably transformed. The texture had lightened, almost to the point of being 'fluffy'. The sharp edges that I remembered from the soup that I had consumed earlier had rounded out (except for the acidity), yet the flavor had amplified. The difference was like listening to a CD versus a attending a concert; the raw soup was good, but the fermented soup tasted alive.

September 08, 2011

I have a friend who claims that regular consumption of kefir will provide her with a long, healthy, disease-free life. I hope she's right.

It seems that most kefir enthusiasts drink it for the health benefits (which are substantial) but almost apologetically claim that the flavor is an acquired one. Sure, if you're not open to the taste of sour milk, kefir can be offputting. But, by making it yourself, you can control the degree of sourness— from mildly tangy to sharp and effervescent.

For the uninitiated, kefir is fermented milk, cultured with kefir grains. The gelatinous grains are a matrix of sugar, protein, fat, and ash that harbor a garden of yeast and bacteria. It is the yeast that sets it apart from other milk cultures that are predominately bacteria.

Making kefir is as simple as adding the grains to milk (about 1 tablespoon of grains per 2 cups of milk) and allowing it to ferment at room temperature for a day or two. When the desired texture and flavor are achieved, the grains are strained from the kefir and recycled to start a new batch. If those directions sound vague, they are intentionally so. Even with careful weighing and control of temperature, the results are not always consistent. I've come to believe that this is because kefir grains are living organisms that operate with dual microbes and that the speed and efficiency with which they culture a new batch of kefir is largely dependent on their active state at the time of introduction. For example, I've found that after straining the grains from a completed batch of kefir and immediately adding them to fresh milk, fermentation (detected by the onset of a sour flavor) begins more rapidly than when a batch is started with grains that have been stored in the refrigerator between batches.

With so many variables, I no longer bother with weights and temperature, I just set it out on the counter and let it do its thing. Sometimes I catch it when it turns creamy and just begins to acquire a tang. Sometimes I let it ripen until it curdles and precipitates whey, at which point the curds can be drained to form a soft, tangy cheese. My favorite thing is to cover it tightly while it ferments to trap the CO2 released by the yeast until it gets fizzy. Milk champagne is a wonderous thing!

August 29, 2011

Shrimp cocktail made its debut on American menus in the 1920's. The combination of ketchup and seafood existed long before that, but the addition of horseradish and lemon was a unique creation for Prohibition; a mock cocktail to open the palate and a reason to dust off fancy stemware.

Gratefully, the ban on alcohol was lifted 80 years ago. Since then, we are not only free to celebrate with a proper cocktail, but cocktails themselves have become a cause for celebration. With the evolution of bartenders into mixologists, the world of potable flavor seems limitless.

Seafood broth in cocktails is nothing new. Forty five years ago, Mott's introduced a blend of tomato juice and clam broth inspired by the flavors of Manhattan clam chowder and marketed it as Clamato. Mixed with vodka, it remains a popular savory alternative to a Bloody Mary.

When looking at the opening courses of a progressive dinner where the focus is on clean balanced flavors, for which sea creatures are so well suited, it surprises me that there are not more seafood based cocktails. In addition to Clamato cocktails, there is Sangre de Tigre— a fierce potion made from ceviche marinade. Though delicious, it nearly blew out my palate. This shrimp-based libation is more delicate; a sweet-sour-savory blend of flavors, piqued by horseradish.

shrimp cocktailmakes about 4 cocktails

Most of the fun— and a lot of flavor— come from the garnishes: sucking the shrimp head, then peeling and eating the body (serve with a small bowl for the shells and moist towellette to clean fingers). The hollow stem of lovage also contributes vegetal celery flavor— it's a straw that you'll want to chew.

Arrange the shrimp in a single layer in a sous vide bag and pour in the remaining ingredients. Vaccuum seal the bag and cook at 49C/120F for 25 minutes. Transfer bag to an ice bath and chill for 15 minutes. Open bag and strain broth through a fine mesh sieve. Chill broth and shrimp seperately.

for each cocktail:70g chilled shrimp broth4g lime juice24g white rum

Place broth, lime juice, and rum in a cocktail shaker half-filled with ice. Shake vigorously and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lovage straw and chilled shrimp.

August 18, 2011

A light dusting of seasoned flour. A quick saute in a hot pan replete with butter, nutty and brown. A benediction of lemon.Prepared this way, soft shell crab has no rival.

The exquisite crunch of shell. The burst of sweet meat, so soft and moist that it's nearly a gel. It's a startling affirmation of the transcendence of pristine product, simply prepared.

But I know you don't come here to see a soft shell crab on a plate. In fact, that's not why I come here myself. My mission— now, as always— is to explore.

After exploring other preparations for soft shell crab, I had to concede that the legs are nothing without the crunch provided by hot fat. But the claws are meaty enough to benefit from a post-frying marinade of aromatics and acid, aka escabeche. Turning to the body, I was surprised by how effortlessly the raw nuggets of meat could be extracted from the flexible cartilage. With the help of lime juice, banana pepper, shallot, and green coriander seeds, they were turned into ceviche.

To unite the three preparations, I turned to a dish that I once saw at a Chinese banquet: cold steamed crabs on a bed of white orchids. Many years later, I still draw inspiration from the stunning contrast of ruddy shells swimming in a garden of alabaster petals.

August 09, 2011

"Aren't blowfish potentially lethal?" I asked the fishmonger with genuine concern and a frisson of excitement.

"No" he said, "You're thinking of the kind they serve in Japan. These are from Long Island. They're harmless."

He picked one up and offered to eat it— raw and all— as proof. His comical heroics only slightly allayed my fear. I wanted to ask more questions but there was a long line behind me, so I bought a pound out of curiosity.

Back home, I examined the blowfish tails. They looked innocuous enough. In fact, they looked like they would be pretty tasty. The only thing preventing me from cooking and eating them was a piece of information: were they safe? Certainly, I trusted the fishmonger, but I needed to know what made his blowfish different from the deadly delicacy that I had only read about. I thought the answer would be easy to find.

Blowfish belong to the Tetraodontidae family, of which there are 19 genera and at least 189 species. Fugu is the notorious genus whose preparation is rigorously controlled in Japan and only allowed by licensed chefs who train for 11 years. The culprit toxin: tetrodotoxin, is concentrated in the liver and ovaries (the sale of fugu liver has been banned in Japan since 1983). Tetrodotoxin is a powerful neurotoxin— 1200 times deadlier than cyanide(!)— and when ingested, it paralyzes the diaphragm muscles and produces a pseudo-coma for which there is no antidote. (Interestingly, the toxin is used in Voodoo to induce these symptoms in creating zombies— sounds like fodder for a CSI plot).

Blowfish, or puffers, as they are commonly known, are accused of being the second-most poisonous vertabrate in existence, but by many accounts, their levels of toxicity vary wildly according to species, sex, part of body, season, and location. Puffers are not thought to produce tetrodotoxin themselves— it is believed that they manufacture it from specific precursor bacteria in their prey. Thus, puffers that are raised in farms are free of the toxin.

That was all well and good until I remembered that my fish was labeled "wild-caught".

The internet is both a blessing and a curse . On the one hand, it instantly provides us with a mind-numbing wealth of information. On the other, the uncensored glut often turns up contradictions, and I hit those in spades. For instance, one article in Wiki (whose content I take with a grain of salt) singled out Takifugu oblongus as being non-poisonous, yet another stated that all species of Takifugu were suspect. Other sources unequivocally stated that ALL species were toxic, while others claimed that some were not, but didn't bother to list them. Which to believe? I knew that I had to identify the species of my puffers and the fish monger had given me a valuable clue— they were caught on Long Island. Puffers are warm water fish, there is only one species that venture into the waters north of Florida: Sphoeroides maculatus

Most of what I found about S. maculatus were idyllic accounts by fishermen and childhood reminiscences of summers on the mid-Atlantic coast. Apparently, in the 1960's, northern puffers "were so plentiful that you could practically kick them up on the shore". Amateur fishermen loved them because they could "catch more in an afternoon than they could eat in a week" but professionals who were after the bigger catch found them a nuisance and would "beat them off the side of the boat as we reeled them in". Children were endlessly entertained by their cartoonish spherical bodies. It seems that for most of the decade, the eastern seaboard— from Long Island to the Chesapeake Bay— was teeming with northern puffers. And then they suddenly disappeared. To this day, no one can explain why.

The more I learned about blowfish, the more enigmatic they became, but I was at least encouraged by the memories of those that were familiar with the northern puffer and the casualness with which they caught and prepared the fish. They were eaten with abandon and never with concern of safety— and they all lived to tell about it.

But that was a long time ago and I needed solid facts about the safety of the fish that I was determined to consume. It was then that I realized that if there was any questionable food being sold in the US that the FDA would have a report. On their website I found the answer that I was searching for:

"The only safe sources for imported puffer fish are fish that have been processed and prepared by specially trained and certified fish cutters in the city of Shimonoseki, Japan. Additionally, puffer fish caught in the mid-Atlantic coastal waters of the United States, typically between Virginia and New York, are safe to consume. Puffer fish from all other sources can either naturally contain deadly toxins or become toxic because of environmental factors and therefore are not considered safe."

Finally, I no longer felt like I'd be playing Russian roulette by serving them to my family. When my husband and son asked what they were, I simply said "blowfish tails" and was only mildly surprised by their lack of alarm. I wanted to tell them more, but I just let them enjoy it, uninhibited, as did I.

And we all lived to tell.

I couldn't resist the alliteration of making puffed puffers, and I'm glad I didn't. The crunchy shell was a perfect foil for the sweet fish and a visual reference to its spines. The texture of the meat reminded me of the fried eels that my mother used to make. To get the broken, dehydrated spaghetti to cling to the tails, they were first dipped in a light tempura batter. The sauce is a wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella) aioli, plated to look like red ribbon sorrel (Rumex sanguineus) leaves. A quenelle of beet and fennel salad completes the dish.

July 29, 2011

I've listened to their stories and impressions; some are Utopian glimpses of a country as seen through Merchant Ivory colored lenses. They tell of majestic vistas, magnificent carved stone temples, sultry gardens vibrating with exotic fruits and flowers, and women with dark mysterious eyes draped in silks the color of jewels.

Then there are those who tell of a different India and speak only of oppression, abject poverty, suffocating crowds, dust and lost children. The dichotomy of their tales makes me wonder if they all traveled the same country. But when I think of the places I've been, I realize that India isn't so different from anywhere else.

One recent traveler spoke at length about the food of India: the diversity of street food, rustic dishes in private homes, and a lavish multi-course meal served in a palace. I listened to the descriptions with equal interest, although one in particular captured my imagination. It was of gulab jamun— deep-fried semolina pastries soaked in rose syrup— served with yogurt, pistachios, coconut, and dried fruits. The pastries themselves were described as very dense and sweet, but it was the combination of aromas and flavors that spoke loudest to me of India.

I was thinking of that dessert when I puffed pasta tubes that were cooked in cardamom tea and stuffed with coconut yogurt. Even then I realized that I had made a type of cannoli, which holds no place in Indian cuisine, but I went ahead and added rose and saffron macerated apricot and crushed pistachios. The dish, like the stories, is an impression of a place.

Someday I'd like to see India for myself, but in the meantime I can experience it through food. The flavors and aromas of a cuisine tell the most authentic stories.

July 20, 2011

Although it's been ages since I've even thought of shrimp toast, it was the first thing that came to mind when considering fillings for stuffed puffed pasta. That's because I saw it as a solution to a problem. The problem being greasy, fried bread— too many pores to soak up and store oil.

But frying the stuffed dehydrated pasta posed another problem: the moist stuffing prevented the interior of the pasta shells from puffing. The solution was to fry the shells briefly, then stuff and finish frying.

In a small bowl, toss the shrimp with the scallion, ram rau, ginger, salt, and sesame oil until well blended. Fold in the whipped egg white. Set aside.

Heat the vegetable oil to 190C/375F. Drop 4-5 shells into the hot oil and fry just until they puff, but are still pale (2-3 seconds). Remove quickly and drain on paper towels. Repeat with remaining shells. Reduce oil temperature to 176C/350F.Fill each of the puffed shells with about 1 teaspoon of shrimp mixture. Fill shells in small batches so that they can be immediately fried. Drop filled shells into hot oil and fry just until filling is cooked through. Serve immediately.

July 14, 2011

Seasoned puffed pasta makes a great snack. I like to keep cooked, dehydrated pasta in ziplock bags to fry and season for last minute munchies, cocktail snacks and soup garnishes. They're really good tossed in salads, too.

The potential seasonings are infinite. Here are two of my current favorites:

Quintessential Mac 'n Cheese: Cabot makes a product called Cheddar Shake— a sharp white cheddar powder that has enough moisture to cling to and thickly coat puffed pasta. These really are The Cheesiest.

For something more exotic: I toast fenugreek and coriander seeds, grind them with grains of paradise (melegueta pepper), fennel pollen, meyer lemon zest, salt, and a touch of citric acid, and sprinkle it onto the pasta as soon as it comes out of the fryer. The spices cling better when the pasta's surface is still wet and the heat releases their essences.

Note: Virtually any sauce or paste can be spread thinly on silpat and dehydrated along with the pasta (to save energy), then ground and used as a seasoning. I've had success with (reduced) marinara sauce, bbq sauce, mole, and curry pastes.

July 07, 2011

When I was first learning to cook, I found a recipe for fried pasta that intrigued me. As I recall, the instructions were: cook the pasta in boiling water, drain, deep fry. Being a novice, I didn't fully understand the hostile incompatibility of hot oil and water. But when I dropped the still-wet pasta into the pot of hot oil and watched it violently sputter and overflow, I at least had the sense to step back and turn off the flame.

I think every cook has a hot oil story, some punctuated with scars. I have those too, but from a later incident. That first traumatic encounter taught me that hot oil is no joke. With new respect, I cleaned up the mess and attempted another batch after thoroughly draining the remaining pasta and patting it dry. It still protested— but it didn't overflow.

I served the fried pasta with a marinara dip at a gathering of friends. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, which pleased me, although I didn't think that I would ever make it again.

But, you see, I was wrong. I have made it again... many times. But only because I learned of a better way.

Learning is about making connections. We gather bits of information and experiences and link them together into something cohesive that we can hold on to. Life's epiphanies— whether large or small— come from finding the missing links.

And so it was, while attending a workshop at The French Culinary Institute with Dave Arnold and Nils Noren that I was given the missing link for fried pasta: dehydrate the cooked pasta before frying. Yes, it's an extra step that adds 4-6 hours to the process, but it makes a world of difference. Not only does the dry pasta fry neatly and efficiently, it also blisters and puffs out extravagantly.

Lots of drama, none of the trauma.

puffed pasta

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until very tender (double the time on the package). Drain well. Spread out on dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 50C/120F for 4-6 hours until completely dry. Alternately, cooked pasta can be spread on a rack or silpat-lined baking sheets and dried in a low oven, or in the sun on a warm, dry day. (Note: tubular pasta may need to be supported with straws or dowels to prevent it from collapsing and loosing it's shape.) Pasta can be dehydrated in bulk and stored in airtight containers for months. To puff: drop small batches of dehydrated pasta into a pot of oil that has been heated to 190C/375F and fry until puffed and golden. Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with desired seasoning or serve with a dip.